TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-L Archives

Archiver > TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM > 2012-04 > 1335134242


From: Rondina Muncy <>
Subject: Re: [TGF] Name Variation, a name change or a priest who can't spell
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:37:22 -0500
References: <778e.49e8a487.3cc5cc31@aol.com>
In-Reply-To: <778e.49e8a487.3cc5cc31@aol.com>


Ann,

I think your attention to detail is admirable, however, I agree with
Jilliane. If you discount the enumerators (who may or may not have been
given the spelling that a given family used at the time) or clerks who
decided themselves how the surname would be spelled (a German clerk giving
a German spelling to an Irish name) you may still end up with numerous
spellings of a surname.

Just think about the numerous ways you see words spelled in documents
during the time period you are discussing. A clerk may have 'misspelled' a
word in our eyes simply because he was using an older English spelling. The
only time I take one spelling as THE spelling for ONE person (and maybe a
spouse) is if I have a document where the person clearly wrote their name.
This information does not mean I use that spelling across the board. I use
the spelling of any name as it is spelled on the document I am looking at
and state at the beginning of my work-product that I am doing so.

I do think that your emphasis on how a name was pronounced by a native
tongue from the same region of a country is a helpful tool.

Rondina
_______________________
Rondina P. Muncy
Ancestral Analysis
4008 Linden Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
682.224.6584

www.ancestralanalysis.com


On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 4:03 PM, <> wrote:

>
> Nora wrote:
>
> >I have looked at the records at FamilySearch. For the most part the
> handwriting appears very neat and very consistent. It appears to me that
> the priest, Fr. Smith, made a neat copy of his records into this
> register at some point. He then went back and signed each record with a
> thicker pen, or darker ink, in larger handwriting. This "copying over"
> introduces the possibility that he made transcription errors. In fact,
> regarding the entry of Denis' baptism, the previous record is the
> baptism of James, son of Wm. Quinn and Catherine Mackey. I would argue
> that the surname "Quinn" for Hugh was caused by Fr. Smith losing track
> of where he was in the old record while copying into the book. Also note
> the entry for the baptism of Margaret McGuire, two records up from
> James'. One of her godparents was named Anne Kesidy [Cassidy]. I'm sure
> we could find many similar variations.<
>
>
>
>
> As I was reading this I remembered that the original church, built from
> wood in 1825 was destroyed by fire in 1847 and a new stone church was built
> in 1858. Fr. Smith was the first priest to live in Richmond and was there
> from 1839 to 1849. The earliest register that is available for St.
> Philips,
> which the church labeled as no. 1 begins with a baptism dated 1 December
> 1836
> and is signed by Fr. Smith. A case could be made that after the fire in
> 1847 Fr. Smith copied a burned or damaged register into a new register
> recovering the records from 1 December 1836. Fr. Smiths tour of duty
> comes from
> the book "St. Philip's Roman Catholic Cemetery," published by the Ontario
> Genealogical Society, updated in 1996. "...the community were tended to
> spiritually by itinerant priests...Fathers Heron and Cullen, who served
> these
> needs in the early days, were followed by the Reverend T Smith, the first
> priest to take up residence in Richmond and the incumbent from 1839 to
> 1849."
>
>
> Ann Gilchrest
> The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive
> environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to
> professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list.
> -------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
> with the word
> 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
>

This thread: